Former Prime Minister of Japan Naoto Kan is betting he can break the mold, by reverting to his prelegislative career as a civic activist. Four months after the accident, Mr. Kan announced that he was revising Japan’s energy policy, aiming eventually to rid the country of all its nuclear-power plants. He called the technology’s risks […]

Before the nuclear crisis triggered by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, TEPCO hired some 1,000 new workers a year. Before the March 11th disaster, some 1,000 workers quit the company a year, including those who leave at the mandatory retirement age. In 2011 the number of employees taking voluntary retirement saw a three-fold increase […]

Tomioka, Japan (CNN) –This is Japan’s exclusion zone. No one lives here, a place where 78,000 people once lived. Nearly a year after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster, the exclusion zone remains off-limits due to high levels of radioactive contamination. [quote] We stop in a neighborhood to check the radiation. On the pavement, the surface […]

Environmental activists said in a report Tuesday that nearly 3.3 million New Jerseyans drink water from supplies at risk of contamination if there’s a leak or accident at a nuclear plant. The groups said almost 3.3 million people in the state get their drinking water from surface waters within 50 miles of Oyster Creek, three Salem County […]

Residents in Tokyo‘s Setagay Ward were alarmed to hear that a local supermarket was found with 170 uSv/hr readings on the premises. Two bottles containing radium were found beneath the asphalt in the parking lot. The discovery of radium within the supermarket land marks the first case in which a radioactive substance has been found […]

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says utilities should prepare for fault movements that take place 5 kilometers or more from the plants. The agency says the fault that yielded the magnitude 7 earthquake that struck Fukushima Prefecture in April last year resulted in the movement of a fault that was thought to be inactive […]

A formal complaint about subsidies for nuclear power has been sent to the European Commission which, if upheld, would make it unlikely that any new nuclear power stations will be built in the EU. The complaint has been prepared by lawyers for the UK-based Energy Fair group, with several other environmental groups, and may be followed by […]

[quote] This post is part of an on-going series originally posted at DailyKos and republished by Enformable with permission of the author. Through the series the author highlights and comments on FOIA documents released by the NRC in response to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster. [/quote] In episode 4 of this series – A Marathon, Not a Sprint – we managed to get all […]

Former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin was featured in a VPR commentary this week where she spoke about her personal experiences with the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station and the NRC. [quote] Way back in 1985, when I was Governor, I learned that the plant had falsified inspection reports for years and that thousands of unchecked parts […]

After photographs were circulated showing a guard sleeping and talking on his cellphone while at work, the government is investigating the issue. Building 3019 is the highest security facility at ORNL, which is used to store weapons grade Uranium-233. The DOE will have to look at new security measures after the findings, as there is […]

A newly released memo from the staff of the Iowa Utilities Board has provided a stinging economic critique of legislation passed by the Iowa House in 2011 which would make ratepayers liable for massive utility costs and cost overruns from building new nuclear power plants. “The company would be guaranteed a profit on all spending up to […]

An IAEA mission was dispatched in response to Japan‘s request to evaluate the methodology of its stress-test safety checks now being implemented on idled reactors. By offering to put itself under international scrutiny, Japan hopes to regain public trust in its safety procedures and bring about an eventual restart of nuclear reactors. The head of the […]

The amount of radioactive materials released from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture has increased when compared with the previous month, TEPCO said Monday. The crippled plant released on average – 70 million becquerels per hour, compared with 60 million becquerels in December. Source: Yomiuri [toggle_simple title=”Related Articles” width=”600″] Related articles […]

Contaminated radioactive material in concrete continues to be found as the Japanese government works to find the extent of the distribution. The gravel being stored from quarries in Fukushima prefecture was contaminated by radioactive materials released by the Fukushima Daiichi plant. This gravel was sold to companies, like mixed-concrete companies who used the materials on […]

[quote] This post is part of an on-going series originally posted at DailyKos and republished by Enformable with permission of the author. Through the series the author highlights and comments on FOIA documents released by the NRC in response to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster. [/quote] In this fifth installment of documents released via FOIA from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission we’ll again […]

Revelations that the government and the nuclear energy industry have donated 10.4 billion yen in total to 11 universities have highlighted the heavy reliance of such high education institutions on outside funds for their research into nuclear energy. These universities have been effectively guaranteed stable amounts of research funds as long as they cooperate in […]

The risk of a big earthquake hitting the southern Kanto region including Tokyo within the next four years could be as high as about 70 percent, according to a study compiled by Monday by a team of researchers at the University of Tokyo‘s Earthquake Research Institute. [quote] Naoshi Hirata, a professor at the institute […]

Jan 23 (Reuters) – Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Monday the 1,356-megawatt No.6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant would enter planned maintenance from late March, delayed from its original schedule of March 10. The company last year had said the maintenance on the No.6 unit was scheduled from March 10 to May 2. […]

The International Atomic Energy Agency is considering establishing a permanent office in Fukushima in Japan, the site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, an IAEA official told reporters. The Japanese government asked the IAEA to set up the office and the request will be given “careful consideration,” James Lyons, the agency’s nuclear installation safety […]

It has been revealed that the government’s nuclear disaster taskforce did not keep any records of its meetings after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. NHK asked to see the minutes last November, but it only received a list of agenda items for each of the 21 meetings and found there were no other […]